For the record in case anyone's missed it from me, on occasion I've had files stop working for me, but for a reason I still don't understand, when I've changed permissions from 644 to 666 the files worked again.

It should be noted that almost all of our members var files are still with a 644 permission, and they work fine. Only a few have needed to be changed to 666. Go figure.

Just a quick note here - this is usually due to ownership issues. 644 gives the file owner r/w, everyone else read only. 666 gives everyone r/w. This is why 666 is recommended (because it always works), but 644 will actually work for most installations. I bet that those files you needed to change to 666 for some reason have changed owner. (Often happens during backup/restore or ftp download/upload).Obviously, you won't always notice immediately that 644 is a problem on any given file either, because everyone can read it, so it looks normal at first glance, and not all update problems are immediately noticed.

This is also a likely case regarding the problems of the OP, so do change that file to 666.

Again, does sound like owner issues. If this file somehow have changed owner, it will explain why 644 doesn't work. However, if the owner have changed, it also probably mean that you are not the owner of the files yourself anymore, and therefore cannot change the right assignment either.

As depablo suggested, you may need to contact your host to have them change the file permissions (Unless you have multiple logins to your account, might be that the file belong to another one of them, if so, use the appropriate one to log in and change it)

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trekwebmaster

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Re: Error log stopped workingReply #21 - Feb 10th, 2012 at 11:08pm

I think the problem lies with me and FTP.I have only used it for a week or so and it's still a black art to me.

Since you're new with using FTP, maybe you just need to play with it a bit to see what's going on. Since you're able to FTP to that file, I'm guessing you have access to it, which probably means you're able to change permissions.

Basically, with FTP you right-click the file, click Properties, change the Numeric Value from 644 to 666, and click OK.

Additionally, you may want to download WinSCP for management of your files, and for file transfers. It's actually a more robust, and secure application.

I use both; WinSCP and WS_FTP_LE depending on what I'm doing, the latter of which I use for general uploads. Until I downloaded the latest version of WS_FTP_LE I had a difficult time figuring out how to change permissions since there wasn't a box to simply type in a number, so I used WinSCP to do this. This can now be done in both programs very easily.

By the way, maybe this has nothing to do with permissions at all. Could it be as simple as the file not being there, and that's all there is to it? In other words, if YaBB doesn't create that file on its own if it's missing, then maybe you can simply create that file locally with no data in it, and upload it to the proper folder.

Or if it is listed after all, maybe it's gotten corrupted, in which case you can simply delete it, and then upload a local version of it even if you have to create that file with no data in it.

Just thinking aloud here, and keeping in mind that of the people giving you advice about this, I'm the least intelligent of them all, and have a lot less experience with YaBB even though our forum has been up since 2002. I just know the basics.

Just saying.

Edited:

Corrected a spelling error.

« Last Edit: Feb 11th, 2012 at 1:06am by Bill Myers »

Morning, noon, or night, have a great one!

Note: Like most others, this forum doesn't allow us to freely edit our posts or topics to make corrections as needed, so please remember to look for subsequent posts if you see any mistakes or outdated information. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Using your FTP client, just right-click the file, and click Properties to see what the permissions are; probably 644, which should be fine, but maybe in your case that should be changed to 666.

Morning, noon, or night, have a great one!

Note: Like most others, this forum doesn't allow us to freely edit our posts or topics to make corrections as needed, so please remember to look for subsequent posts if you see any mistakes or outdated information. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Just a quick note here - this is usually due to ownership issues. 644 gives the file owner r/w, everyone else read only. 666 gives everyone r/w. This is why 666 is recommended (because it always works), but 644 will actually work for most installations.

...

Thanks for that clarification. It helps to put my previous issues with permissions into perspective.

I always like to learn something new.

Morning, noon, or night, have a great one!

Note: Like most others, this forum doesn't allow us to freely edit our posts or topics to make corrections as needed, so please remember to look for subsequent posts if you see any mistakes or outdated information. Sorry for the inconvenience.

It seems to me that the file is corrupted. After making sure you have a backup copy, have you tried deleting the file? Or have you tried uploading a local copy of that file to your server?

Also, is your Variables folder set with 755 permissions?

Morning, noon, or night, have a great one!

Note: Like most others, this forum doesn't allow us to freely edit our posts or topics to make corrections as needed, so please remember to look for subsequent posts if you see any mistakes or outdated information. Sorry for the inconvenience.

By the way, as I understand it, the 550 error you're getting simply means that you don't have write permission to the file.

Obviously, you need to change those permissions.

Morning, noon, or night, have a great one!

Note: Like most others, this forum doesn't allow us to freely edit our posts or topics to make corrections as needed, so please remember to look for subsequent posts if you see any mistakes or outdated information. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Sometimes when I've been unable to change or edit a file while using the WS_FTP_LE client, I was able to do what I wanted when I used the WinSCP client. Go figure.

Morning, noon, or night, have a great one!

Note: Like most others, this forum doesn't allow us to freely edit our posts or topics to make corrections as needed, so please remember to look for subsequent posts if you see any mistakes or outdated information. Sorry for the inconvenience.